Ten Questions To a Lecturer[1]

Written:Written in May, before May 15 (28), 1908Published:First Published 1925 inLenin Miscellany III.

      Published according to the manuscript.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1972,

      Moscow,Volume 14,

      pages13-16.Translated:The Late Abraham FinebergTranscription\Markup:D. WaltersPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      1999You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
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1.Doesthe lecturer acknowledge that the philosophy of Marxism
is dialectical materialism ?

Ifhe does not, why has he never analysed Engels’
countless statements on this subject?

Ifhe does, why do the Machists call their
“revision” of dialectical materialism “the
philosophy of Marxism"?

2.Doesthe lecturer acknowledge Engels’ fundamental
division of philosophical systems intoidealismandmaterialism,[2]Engels regarding those intermediate
between these two, wavering between them, as the line of Hume
in modern philosophy, calling this line
“agnosticism” and declaring Kantianism to be a
variety of agnosticism?

3.Doesthe lecturer acknowledge that recognition of the
external world and its reflection in the human mind form the
basis of the theory of knowledge of dialectical materialism?

4.Doesthe lecturer acknowledge as correct Engels’
argument concerning the conversion of
“things-in-themselves” into
“things-for-us”?[3]

5.Doesthe lecturer acknowledge as correct Engels’
assertion that the “real unity of the world consists in
its materiality”? (Anti-Dühring, 2nd ed., 1886, p. 28,
section I, part IV on world
schematism.)[4]

6.Doesthe lecturer acknowledge as correct Engels’
assertion that “matter without motion is as
inconceivable as motion without matter"?
(Anti-Dühring,1886, 2nd ed., p. 45, in part 6
on natural philosophy, cosmogony, physics and
chemistry.)[5]

7.Doesthe lecturer acknowledge that the ideas of causality,
necessity, law, etc., are a reflection in the human mind of
laws of nature, of the real world? Or was Engels wrong in
saying so? (Anti-Dühring, S. 20-21, in part III onapriorism, and S. 103-04, in part XI on freedom and
necessity.)[6]

8.Doesthe lecturer know that Mach expressed his agreement with
he head of the immanentist school, Schuppe, and even
dedicated his last and chief philosophical
work[7]to him?
How does the lecturer explain this adherence of Mach to the
obviously idealist philosophy of Schuppe, a defender ofclericalismand in general a downright reactionary
in philosophy?

9.Whydid the lecturer keep silent about
“adventure” with his comrade of yesterday
(according to the Studies), the Menshevik Yushkevich, who has
oday declared Bogdanov (following in the wake of Rakhmetov)
anidealist?[8]Is the lecturer aware that Petzoldt
in his latest book has classed a number of Mach’s disciplesamong the
idealists?[9]

10.Doesthe lecturer confirm the fact that Machism has nothing
in common with Bolshevism? And that Lenin has repeatedly
protested against
Machism?[10]And that the Mensheviks Yushkevich
and Valentinov are “pure” empirio-criticists?

[1]“TenQuestions to a Lecturer” was written by Lenin
during the first half of May 1908 in London. He had come there
from Geneva to work on his bookMateterialism and
Empirio-criticism,and he sent the questions to
I. F. Dubrovinsky, a member of the Bolshevik centre and one of
he editors of the newspaperProletary,as theses for a
speech on the occasion of the lecture entitled “Adventures of
One Philosophical School” given by A. Bogdanov in Geneva on May 15 (28), 1908.

Bogdnnov,Lunacharsky and others, who supported Machist
standpoints in philosophy, took advantage of Lenin’s absence to
increase their activity. Under the guise of criticising
“materialism of the Plekhanov school”, they revised materialist
philosophy and tried to show that empirio-monism, the variety of
Machism invented by Bogdanov, and not dialectical materialism,
was the philosophy of Bolshevism.

Inpreparing his speech, Dubrovinsky made changes in the second,
hird and tenth questions and deleted the seventh question. In
his speech, which was based on Lenin’s theses, Dubrovinsky (who
used the pseudonym Dorov) sharply criticised Bogdanovs views,
declaring that Bolshevism had nothing in common with
empirio-monism and showing that the advocacy of “god-building"
was incompatible with dialectical materialism.

[2]SeeF. Engels,Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy

[3]SeeF. Engels, “Special Introduction to the English Edition of 1892”
	of his workSocialism:
	Utopian and Scientific,and hisLudwig Fuerbach
	end the End of Classical German Philosophy(K. Marx and
	F. Engels,Selected Works,Vol. II, Moscow, 1958,
	pp. 99-102, 370-71).

[4]SeeF. Engels,Anti-Dürhring,Moscow, 1959, p. 65.

[5]SeeF. Engels,Anti-Dürhring,Moscow. 1959, p. 86.

[6]SeeF. Engels,Anti-Dürhring,Moscow, 1959,
pp. 53-54,157.

[7]Leninis referring to Ernst Mach’s bookErkennt,,is und
Irrtum. Skizzen stir Psyhrnlogie der Forsohung (Knowledge and
Error.Sketches of the Psychology of Investigation),the
first edition of which was published in Leipzig in 1905.

ForLenin’s characterisation of the iminanentist school seeAl ateria 11am and Lmpirio-criticism,especially
Chapter Four, Section 3 (pp. 209-17 of this volume).

[8]Leninis
referring to the chapter entitled “A. Bogdanov ’s
Empirio-monism”, in P. S. Yushkevich’s bookMaterialism and
Critica1 hi Realism. Philosophical Trends in Monism,St. Petersburg, 1908, pp. 161-93.

[9]Leninis referring to Joseph Petzoldt’s bookDas Weltproblem von
positivistischen Standpnnkte aus(The World Problem from the
Positivist Standpoint).

[10]SeeLenin’s letter to A. M. Gorky of February 12 (25), 1908 (present
edition, Volume 13 , pp. 448-54).